Ph.D. Candidate Ya-Wen Lei has been notified of her acceptance to the Harvard Society of Fellows for a three year period beginning in Fall 2013.

by eshelman

Ph.D. Candidate Ya-Wen Lei will join the Harvard Society of Fellows for a three year period beginning in Fall 2013. One of the most prestigious post-doctoral fellowships in the country, the Harvard Society of Fellows admits approximately ten junior fellows a year from across the disciplines and Lei is only the 16th sociologist admitted since the programs inception in 1933.

During the tenure of her fellowship, Lei will work on a book project explaining the emergence and growth of the public sphere in China. She does this by investigating the social and cultural relationships that have developed in the process of legal reform, media marketization and globalization.

Lei reports that the Society of Fellows and Harvard University will provide an exceptional intellectual environment for her project and that she will benefit greatly from the interdisciplinary environment of the Society, and the opportunity to interact with scholars in the Department of Sociology, Harvard Law School, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Ya-Wen Lei will be defending her dissertation "Uncovering the Roots of the Nationwide Counterpublic Sphere in China" later this spring. Her advisor is Professor Greta Krippner.